Wynnic Lore #5

Welcome back once again to Wynnic Lore; the thread series that attempts to rival the stereotypical dad when it comes to jokes. As you may have noticed in the last Wynnic Lore (or this one if you had decided to, ahem, skip to the end. But who would do that?), there was a spoiler at the end with a picture. I’ll reveal more about that in the next thread, but for now, I’ll just tell you that you’ll be seeing quite a bit more on that soon enough...

Anyway, what this week’s Wynnic Lore will focus on is the almighty potato. Well, not just one potato, more just any magic potato. Why are there so many? What powers could they hold? (And how many parentheses will this thread have?) This episode of Wynnic Lore hopes to find out. *Time Team theme plays*

Speculation​

With that reference to a history-focused TV show out of the way, the mystery of potatoes is the focus of this post. For most players, the potatoes likely go unnoticed until the Seaskipper captain tells the player that all item identifiers have a secret stash of them. Most people probably just pass this off as a villager oddity, but on the island of Corkus, Pernix monkeys also appear to obsess over them. There’s even a whole potato island (not made of potatoes)!

So surely there must be some reason to keep loads of potatoes (other than for potato-powered clocks). The fact that item identifiers always have a stash of them suggests that they must have some level of magic around them. And when added to food, the average potato gives a mild loot bonus, with rare potatoes giving up to an extra ten percent loot bonus per potato. With this knowledge, item identifiers having plenty makes a bit more sense, if they help with recognizing something’s use or value, of course the item identifiers would want them to aid in identifying gear! The more useful or valuable the item is, the more he or she is paid.

But this is just a possible attribute potatoes may have. How can we be sure this is correct? Well, keep in mind, this is just speculation. It isn’t guaranteed to be true. That doesn’t mean there isn’t more proof though. You may have come across an imp at some point while effortlessly slaying your way through the Emerald Trail or riding across the Llevigar Plains. Imps are known for hoarding things, especially if those things are especially valuable (these parentheses are only here to help this paragraph fit in with the rest). Do you remember the Potato Island I mentioned earlier? Well, there happen to be imps on that island. Considering how common potatoes are on that island, you would think they would be hunting for something else, but they mostly just drop rare potatoes. Those imps are clearly there to find the most useful potatoes there, likely given their nature, so they can use them to find even more valuable items.

The Story​

So how is it that item identifiers have all discovered the power of the potatoes? They’re somewhat easy to get (you can buy them from merchants in Brimminglar, Remek, and Thanos), but surely there must be some story behind item identifiers’ use of potatoes. Well, here’s what I think may have happened.

Many years ago, in Gavel, the potato was discovered. It quickly became a common food item, as no one had realized its power yet. Many farms across Gavel began to plant these spuds, as they were easy to grow and could be sold somewhat reliably. However, eventually imps began to notice the magic properties the potatoes had.

Through their greed, imps began to raid farms for potatoes and eating them to aid in finding more valuable items. With their new food, the imps collected elemental powders more powerful and concentrated than average, and could hoard more emeralds without being caught. After a while, the farmers of Gavel mostly gave up on trying to farm potatoes, as whenever they tried, it just encouraged imps to steal from them.

Noticing the lack of potatoes, some of the more educated villagers became interested in why imps would be so keen on stealing potatoes of all things. After some potato-related experiments, one villager went back to his or her job at the local armory, where they noticed that they could sort through the armor and weapons more easily than normal. To make sure his discovery was true, the villager came back to the armory the next day without having any contact with potatoes, to find that it took them longer to identify each item. They had discovered the magic around the potato.

The villager decided that this was a great business opportunity and set up just inside the door of Llevigar’s Academy. That day they identified several items for people, and more people came the next day. The business grew and eventually other cities began to take note of what was happening. That first item identifier began to struggle to keep up with all their customers and agreed to give villagers from other towns the secret if in return they paid a large sum of emeralds. The item identifier business spread throughout Gavel, and eventually villagers sailed across the sea with that knowledge and their potatoes, which were kept secret from anyone aside from those employed by the first item identifier.

On their way across the sea, one of the ships lost a single villager and a few crates of potatoes at an island. Unable to find the traitor, they continued on to Wynn, abandoning the traitorous villager on what would become Potato Island.

Once reaching Wynn, the villagers established the colony of Maltic and spread throughout Wynn’s cities to profit off the corruption wars. It was around this time that a few imps that had stowed away on the villagers’ ships began to spread across Wynn as well, but not nearly as much as in Gavel. Some humans, noticing that the villagers prized their potatoes so much, stole them to try to find their power for themselves.

The humans never found the magic around the potatoes, but continued to grow and sell them anyway. All this lead up to modern times, when item identifiers are a common sight in cities, and their potatoes remain a mystery to most people, be they human or villager.

The End​

Well, you managed to read through another one of these. I guess you’re probably expecting a bit of a proper end to this post. Before that, I would like to ask you to reply to this thread with a question or mystery involving the history of Wynncraft. Some ideas like this may be a bit more obvious, but the better ones are usually a bit more difficult to remember just off the top of your head. This idea I found while looking through these forums, but any ideas for Wynnic Lore posts shared as replies would be appreciated. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this Wynnic Lore, and have a good day.

Sources:
Potato (crafting ingrediant)
Rare Potato
Potato Merchants
Seaskipper Captain
Potato Island
Potato Imp
Pernix Monkeys

Spoiler